Air Masses and Weather Fronts

1
Air Masses and Weather Fronts

• Especially Mid-Latitude Weather
• The Wave Cyclone
• pp. 104-109

2
Mid-Latitude Weather

• Polar Front
• Boundary between tropical and polar air masses
• Not the same as the Arctic Front
• Determines weather in the middle latitudes
• 30 60 degrees latitude

3
Arctic and Polar Fronts
4
Air Mass Classification

• Basically a two way classification
• Continental vs. Maritime
• and
• Polar vs. Tropical

5
Air Mass Classifications

• cP Continental Polar
• cT Continental Tropical
• mP Maritime Polar
• mT Maritime Tropical
• A, AA Arctic, Antarctic
• E Equatorial

6
Mid-Latitude Weather

• Polar Front Theory
• of
• Cyclogenesis

7
The Wave Cyclone

• How energy flows from low latitudes to high
  latitudes
• Link

8
Weather Fronts

• Cold
• Warm
• Stationary
• Occluded

9
The Cloud Man

• John A. Day